The invention relates to a remote control for a hearing aid and to a hearing aid that is remotely controlled.
Inductive hearing-aid controls have long been known, for instance from the Swiss patent 670,349. They constitute one more device the individual must keep nearby to act as required on their hearing aid operation. It is far from easy for everybody to carry out in public remote hearing aid control in an unobtrusive manner, because thereby disclosing the use of a hearing aid against his desire to hide such a fact.
Another problem arises in that the remote control may not be at hand precisely when needed.
The present invention is directed toward solving the deficiencies in the art.
An inductive remote control conventionally comprises a transmission unit acting at its output on a coil which is the transmitter antenna. A control unit is externally fed with control signals and transmits, at its output side, at least part of the hearing-aid control signals to the transmission unit. In accordance with the present invention, such a transmission unit, coil, control device and a plain or rechargeable battery are integrated into a wrist watch. The coil is designed such that it will generate a magnetic field as would be attained from a magnetic dipole parallel to the direction of the wrist band. As regards an analog watch, the direction corresponds to that subtended by the 6 o""clock and 12 o""clock markings on the watch dial.
The integration of remote controls into a wrist watch is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,063,410; German patent 36 42 828 corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 4,947,432 and in the European patent document 0,298,323.
The integration of the invention of an inductive remote control (using a coil as the transmitter antenna) into a wrist watch and to use this inductive remote control as the hearing-aid remote control additionally solves the problem in the conventional remote controls whereby no rules can be set regarding position. Also, frequently the communications link between the remote control and the hearing aid cannot be established or will be interrupted because of unfavorable relative positions at the time. As regards the remote control of the invention, on the other hand, the remote control, when being operated, is moved in position within a relatively narrow range of positions, in general in front of the torso of the operator, and as a result the communications link is substantially assured.
Considering present-day miniaturization of hearing aids and the endeavors to hide them as inconspicuously as possible within the ear zone, problems concerning reliability of transmission are easily solved in the procedure of the invention. The inductive remote controls, operating on electromagnetic field principles, must suffice at very low powers such that the operations entail no frequency-band restrictions or special permits as are known regarding higher radio transmission powers.
Within the scope of the present invention, optimal communications reliability between the remote control at the wrist watch and the hearing aid is attained, as already cited, provided that the coil generate a magnetic field approximately that of a magnetic dipole at the wrist watch, and in the case of an analog watch, in the 6 o""clock to 12 o""clock direction on the dial.
Though it might seem obvious to use such components as the highly stable reference oscillators anyway already present in the watch for chronometric purposes also for the integrated remote control function of the invention, this approach however is not followed in accordance with one preferred embodiment of the present invention. At least part of the components, namely the transmission unit, the coil, the control unit and the plain battery or rechargeable battery are integrated into the wrist watch as operational units independent of chronometric function. The invention, therefore, allows integration of the remote control into the wrist watch without significantly affecting the already known and mass-produced operational units driving the chronometric function. Accordingly, the present invention therefore offers higher flexibility in the mentioned integration into wrist watches of the most varied constructions.
Another preferred embodiment of the remote control of the present invention provides at least one manually driven input device at the wrist watch. The input device may be used to operate the control unit, to actuate switching to other operational modes, control commands for instance for loudness, directionality, frequency-filter characteristics etc. at the hearing aid. Obviously the invention easily allows substituting voice inputs instead of one or more input devices, or in addition to, several manually operated ones such as keys, capacitive touch sensors etc. at the wrist watch.
In a further preferred embodiment of the remote control of the invention, the watch is fitted with a visual display and/or an acoustic annunciator, preferably including an LED display. The display and/or annunciator is operationally connected to the control unit and/or the transmission unit, and confirms proper operation of the externally operable control unit, and/or displays that a preset charge on the plain or rechargeable battery of the remote control has been reached. As a result, the operator reliably knows on one hand that the input command signals have been properly recorded, as is especially important for key and/or voice inputs, and on the other hand will be informed when it is time to change the plain battery or to recharge the rechargeable one.
In another preferred embodiment of the remote control of the invention, the transmission unit generates an amplitude-modulated (AM) or frequency-modulated (FM) signal of a center frequency f of a given frequency range, where
10 kHzxe2x89xa6fxe2x89xa6100 kHz,
preferably 20 kHzxe2x89xa6fxe2x89xa660 kHz and more preferably 35 kHzxe2x89xa6fxe2x89xa645 kHz.
Even though, as already specified, it is easily feasible to generate the transmission field of the invention by superposing the fields from several coils, in a preferred embodiment the coil system is a linear coil. The linear coil is preferably a coil wound over a ferrite core that is integrated into the watch. The coil has an axial direction parallel to the direction of the wrist band, that is parallel to the direction of the 6 to 12 o""clock line of an analog watch.
Preferably, at least the plain battery or the rechargeable battery of the remote control is a Li-ion battery unit which, where called for, may also be used to drive the chronometer proper.
Further, at least one hearing aid is associated with a remote control and a receiver tuned to the transmission unit of the remote control is present in at least one hearing aid.